All of the players in
Beethoven’s Fifth made crucial contributions to
the team’s results for the weekend.

On paper, the Midland Monarchs
were the second strongest team, and it was a
great start when we beat them in the first
round. In the second round we faced Witney, a
team stronger in reality than their grades would
suggest. Fortunately for us, they had 6 team
members that they were cycling and one of their
stronger players was not playing in that round;
even so, we did not quite manage to beat them,
Alyssa outplaying her opponent throughout the
game but then missing some tactics which gave a
clear win, so having to settle for a draw.

The third round opponents were
Yateley Manor, a team that we outgraded
significantly on every board except board 4. It
all looked as if it was well in the bag on the
other boards, but unfortunately Vickie was
having a bad day (it happens to all of us) and
blundered to lose her game. So the team was
especially grateful for Aishwarya’s win on board
4, which meant the match was another win for the
team. End of Saturday, 5/6 match points, 2nd
place behind Gloucester Giants on 6/6 and
everything to play for on the Sunday.

On previous weekends, the
Beethoven’s Fifth team have done far better on
the Saturday than the Sunday. This has been in a
large part due to the “pool” system where with 8
teams, the top 2 from each pool play the other
top 2 on the second day.

For this last weekend of the
season, there were only 6 teams entered, so the
format was all-play-all. But as round 4
progressed, it started to look like the Sunday
jinx was continuing. While the players in the
Welsh Dragons team had quite low published ECF
grades (and/or WCU ratings), as is often the
case with stronger juniors, this clearly did not
give a fair representation of their current
playing ability.

Aishwarya was playing her best
friend Emily, and was winning comfortably, until
suddenly she lost. Alyssa was outplayed by her
fellow countryman on board 1 in the end game
after an equal opening and middle game. It was
not a complete rout, since Zoe played very
strong chess to win on board 3 and Vickie held
the draw on board 2 despite being two pawns
down.

Still, that left everything
hanging on the final game against the toughest
team in the competition, the overall winners,
the Gloucester Giants (“McLarens +1”). Only a
win would guarantee a trophy to add to the prize
money for the season. That would be second
place. A draw would give third or fourth place
depending on the exact results from the other
teams. A loss was almost certain to mean fourth
place on game points. Aishwarya hung on
heroically for a long time, but finally
succumbed to an on-form opponent 40 grading
points ahead of her and playing well above his
grade. Alyssa played a solid game to score a
draw against Charlie. Zoe managed to make it a
fantastic tournament performance of 5/5 with a
win against Harry. It was all down to Vickie.

The last game, still playing.
Dangers of being distracted by people crowding
round. She was a piece for a pawn up but much
lower on time. Well, she pulled the rabbit out
of the hat just when it was needed! Turning down
a draw, she managed to swap off queens and rooks
to get a winning end game while thinking in her
opponent’s time. At one point Tom had 20 minutes
to Vickie’s 6 minutes, but by the end when Tom,
in Zugzwang, resigned, both clocks showed about
2 to 3 minutes left (Fischer timings helped!)

- Andrew Varney

4NCL Final Weekend

The final weekend of the
junior league took place on 6th and 7th April at the Puma Daventry Court Hotel.
It ran alongside the National Junior Squad
event.

Final Standings

Team

1

2

3

Total

Gloucester Giants

7

10

8

25

Beethoven's Fifth

5

4

7

16

Midland Monarchs

8

5

13

Witney

2

2

6

10

Chessnuts

10

10

Dreigiau Coch

5

4

9

Nottingham Juniors

2

6

8

Yateley Manor A

6

1

0

7

Yateley Manor B

5

5

Marchogion Cymraeg

4

4

Brown Jack

3

3

Saturday & Sunday draw
& results

Round 1

Beethoven's Fifth

2½

-

1½

Midland Monarchs

Witney

1½

-

2½

Gloucester Giants

Yateley Manor

½

-

3½

Welsh Dragons

Round 2

Midland Monarchs

4

-

0

Welsh Dragons

Gloucester Giants

3½

-

½

Yateley Manor

Beethoven's Fifth

2

-

2

Witney

Round 3

Witney

2

-

2

Midland Monarchs

Yateley Manor

1½

-

2½

Beethoven's Fifth

Welsh Dragons

1½

-

2½

Gloucester Giants

Round 4

Midland Monarchs

½

-

3½

Gloucester Giants

Beethoven's Fifth

1½

-

2½

Welsh Dragons

Witney

3

-

1

Yateley Manor

Round 5

Yateley Manor

1½

-

2½

Midland Monarchs

Welsh Dragons

1½

-

2½

Witney

Gloucester Giants

1½

-

2½

Beethoven's Fifth

Table after Saturday
& Sunday's
games

P

W

D

L

BW

BL

PTS

1

Gloucester Giants

5

4

0

1

13½

6½

8

2

Beethoven's Fifth

5

3

1

1

11

9

7

3

Witney

5

2

2

1

11

9

6

4

Midland Monarchs

5

2

1

2

10½

9½

5

5

Welsh Dragons

5

2

0

3

9

11

4

6

Yateley Manor

5

0

0

5

5

15

0

Weekend 2
-
23rd-24th Feb 2013

The junior 4NCL weekend that
had been postponed because of the weather in
January took place alongside Division Three
South. Whilst the event had a relatively modest
entry of eight teams it was a well-organised
event played in a good spirit with top seeds
Gloucester Giants winning all five matches to
take first place. The format was two groups of
four playing each other on Saturday with the top
two in each then forming a group of four with
the result between the two qualifying teams
being carried forward.

Congratulations to the
winning team of Charlie, Thomas and Harry
McLaren and Daniel Varney who had a surprisingly
comfortable victory against Midland Monarchs in
round five when both teams had maximum points
but Midland Monarchs were leading on game points
and so only needed a 2-2 draw to take first
place. As the manager of Midland Monarchs I
would like to congratulate Gloucester Giants
who, by virtue of having played in the first
weekend, appear to have an almost decisive lead
in the overall standings. I would also like to
thank Angelica Dean, Rajen Parekh, Jennifer Neil
and Asha Jina who all performed well for my team
and ensured that first place remained wide open
going into the last round.

The final weekend of the
junior league takes place on 6th and 7th April,
again at the Puma Daventry Court Hotel and I
hope that more teams will enter, although the
fact that it is running alongside Peter
Purland’s National Junior Squad event (a
regrettable necessity given the need to ensure
an adequate number of booked bedrooms to make it
worth the venue’s while to provide a free
playing venue) may deny some of the stronger
teams of their top boards - Lawrence Cooper.

Junior Four
Nations League (J4NCL) - End of Term Report2011/12by Mike Truran

3 cheers for the Junior 4NCL weekend,
enjoyed by all

This season’s competition was
bigger and better than ever, with teams of all
ages competing over three weekends in two
separate divisions. Like its senior equivalent,
the Junior Four Nations Chess League (J4NCL) has
the advantage of taking place in excellent
quality playing conditions in premier hotels
across the UK.

This season’s competition took
place at Puma Hotels UK’s flagship
Hinckley Island Hotel, so parents could also
have a relaxing weekend away at a top four-star
hotel while their children locked horns over the
chess board. And with bedrooms and meals at the
usual discounted 4NCL rates it meant that a
family weekend away wasn’t going to break the
bank either.

As well as the high quality
playing conditions, the J4NCL differentiates
itself from most other junior events in offering
free structured coaching between rounds for all
the children, and the coaches also go through
games on a one-to-one basis with any juniors who
finish their games early. This season’s coaches
(GM Nick Pert, IM Andrew Martin and WFM Sabrina
Chevannes) did a fine job; on occasion the job
seemed (to this observer at least) to be as much
an exercise in riot control as anything else,
but the coaches all came through in grand style
and we had lots of compliments from parents
about the quality of the coaching. Another
difference from many other junior (and senior)
events is that teams can enter either for the
whole season or for individual weekends.
Moreover, we have no rules as to who can or
can’t be in a team (they can be school-based,
club-based, family-based, or just a collection
of friends who like playing together); even
individual children without a team will be found
a home somewhere. Nor do we have any
age-restricted sections or age handicap rules,
on the basis that (as they say in football) ‘If
you’re good enough you’re old enough’. So long
as they’re juniors, the more the merrier!

Winning Team: Cumnor
and Witney at the prizegiving ceremony

When the dust settled at the end
of the final weekend Cumnor and Witney finished
just ahead of Yateley Manor by a single match
point in Division 1. One match point behind them
at the start of the penultimate round, they
edged a 2½:1½ win, with your correspondent’s son
‘taking one for the team’ in the last game to
finish, agreeing a draw to secure the match in a
winning position but where he was short of time.
Andrew Martin said after the game “You both
played like old men”, which I take to be a
compliment about the maturity of their playing
styles rather than a comment on the geriatric
nature of their play!

Division 2 was just as exciting,
with Northampton Juniors just edging out another
of Yateley Manor’s teams, again by a single
match point. Yateley Manor and Northampton
Juniors deserve a particular mention for their
fantastic support for the J4NCL, fielding no
fewer than six and four teams respectively at
the final weekend. In addition to the cash
prizes on offer, the prize-giving ceremony on
Sunday afternoon saw all players receive a
certificate and a badge, with the top individual
scorers receiving medals and winning team
members being presented with medals and a
trophy. So everyone got something to take home
as a memento.

The standard of the chess was
generally excellent, and various parents
commented on how much better many of the juniors
were playing by the third weekend compared with
the first. Children do of course improve fast at
this age, but we like to think that the J4NCL
coaching had something to do with it as well!
Nonetheless, in any event with a range of chess
playing ability some memorable moments are bound
to occur:

Children to arbiter: “Is this
position stalemate?”

Arbiter to children: “Well,
let me see. Whose move is it?”

Children to arbiter: “We
don’t know!”

Arthur’s opponent to arbiter:
“Arthur has just put his king on that square
(pointing to b7) after moving it to that square
(pointing to b5)”.

Arthur (getting tearful): “No
I didn’t!”

Arthur’s opponent: “I hate
you!”

Arthur dissolves in tears.

Arbiter (tactfully) to two
juniors who have played out well over a hundred
moves at lightning speed since the start of a Q
and K vs K ending (the player with the Q having
forgotten about his own K, making things a touch
tricky): “I think it’s time for lunch now.”

Cumnor and Witney vs Yateley Manor match
in progress

All part of the thrills and
spills in the lower reaches of the J4NCL, and a
salutary lesson for any arbiters who think they
have seen it all!

It only remains for me to thank
the parents and children for supporting the
J4NCL, the organisers, arbiters and coaches for
ensuring an enjoyable and stress-free experience
for the players (although their own stress
levels were on occasion sorely tested!), the
John Robinson Trust for their generous
sponsorship of the J4NCL, and Puma Hotels for
their continuing support of both the 4NCL and
the J4NCL. And now it’s on to planning for the
2012/13 season!